Origine et histoire

From the Old Norse 'kjarr', meaning 'a thicket of brushwood' or 'a marsh overgrown with brushwood' — a topographic name for someone living near such terrain. The name was carried to Scotland by Norse settlers and later reinforced by Anglo-Norman de Ker families who arrived in the twelfth century and established themselves in Roxburghshire. Clan Kerr (also spelled Carr, Ker) was one of the most powerful Border clans, centred at Ferniehirst and Cessford in the Scottish Borders, where they served as Wardens of the Middle March. A folk tradition holds that Kerrs were predominantly left-handed ('corrie-fisted'), and that Ferniehirst Castle's spiral staircase winds anti-clockwise to advantage left-handed defenders.